Rule 77.Trial Setting; Conduct of Proceedings; Procedures for Evidentiary Hearings and Trials

Rule 77 closes Part IX with the mechanics of getting to trial and what happens once there.

Setting the case

Unless the court has already set trial on its own or at a resolution management or scheduling conference, any party may move to set. The motion states when the case will be ready, the names, addresses and telephone numbers of the parties or attorneys responsible for the litigation, whether the case is entitled to a preference because legal decision-making or parenting time is at issue, and the estimated time for trial.

That preference is worth noting: cases about children move ahead of cases about money. Continuances and scheduling conflicts are governed by Rule 34.

Conduct

The court may impose reasonable time limits, and a party may request additional time. Participants must conduct themselves in an orderly, courteous and dignified manner, and must address their arguments and remarks to the court, not to the other parties or their counsel. Unless the court allows otherwise, only one attorney for each party may examine a witness.

Trial procedure, and the guarantee

The court should adopt procedures to facilitate a just, speedy and efficient resolution, including reasonable time limits and allocation of trial time between the parties. Whatever it adopts, it must ensure that all parties and counsel have an opportunity to be heard, to present evidence, and to call, examine and cross-examine witnesses. Efficiency measures cannot displace that.

The self-represented party provision

Section (d)(2) is the most distinctive rule in Part IX. Absent a request otherwise before testimony begins, the court will conduct the direct examination of a self-represented party on the issues raised by the pleadings, pretrial statements and notices of issues.

Most family law litigants in Arizona appear without counsel, and a person who cannot ask themselves questions in the third person can lose a case on procedure rather than on facts. The rule has the judge do the questioning instead -- and then preserves the party's own initiative in three ways. Within their allotted trial time, a self-represented party may testify about relevant information the court's examination did not reach, may conduct their own direct examination on request, and may cross-examine the other parties and their witnesses.

A parallel provision lets the court examine a witness in Title IV-D child support hearings, where the State's involvement creates a similar imbalance. Both were amended August 28, 2025, effective January 1, 2026.